You will find part one on Mary C's site, The Moorings.
A thin, wispy cloud sailed in front of the nearly-full moon as Bobby tramped along the path that led to Manor House. It got even darker when he reached the place where the trees arched over the path and he pulled out the flashlight. He shivered a little. Some night-time animal was moving in the undergrowth, but he couldn’t see anything, no matter which way he aimed the light.
Do snakes come out at night? Do skunks? He didn’t want to surprise a skunk. But what if it was a catamount? He knew they came out at night.
Pushing down the fear and putting on a fierce expression, he set off again. Somewhere around here, there must be one of those twenty-four hour clocks and he was going to find it. Nearing the bottom of the Wheeler driveway, he pulled out Trixie’s alarm clock and frowned at it. He definitely didn’t have time to get all the way to the Lynch mansion, at least, not if he wanted time for searching, so it was just as well he’d decided not to go there. But should he try Regan’s apartment, or the main house?
He trudged up the hill, glad to be out from under the trees. Those pesky clouds kept blotting out the moonlight, but not as badly as the trees had. He followed the drive around to the garage and a thrill ran through him. There, through the window, he could see a strange, bluish light that flickered every now and again. That was where the clock was, for sure. Regan must have it out to look at it. Maybe he was waiting for twenty-four o’clock, too.
Bobby tip-toed up the stairs, holding tight to the flashlight in one hand and the railing in the other. The door at the top was closed tight. He frowned. Most times, the door was open if Regan was home and Bobby could walk right in. He gave it a push and it rattled a little. From inside came a growling sound and Bobby nearly fell down the stairs in fright.
Had Regan gotten a big, fierce dog and not told him? Bobby wasn’t about to open the door and find out. He retraced his steps to the bottom of the stairs and tried to think of a new plan. If Regan’s apartment was all closed up, the main house would be as well.
“The stables!” he exclaimed aloud, then slapped a hand over his mouth. He hadn’t meant for that to be so loud.
Bobby turned his steps in the direction of Regan’s office in the stables. Regan would have closed up the big main doors, but Bobby knew where the little side door was and how to open it. The moon shone down between the clouds, but that door stood in deep shadows. Bobby had to feel the catch with his hands and it took a little longer than he’d expected, but eventually it opened and he stepped into the building.
He took a deep breath of the horsey smell – the horses themselves and their feed and that stuff that Regan made everyone use on the saddles and things – and pulled the door shut behind himself. That was a mistake. Without the open door, it was pitch black inside. Even his flashlight didn’t make much difference. He pushed it back open again and breathed a little easier.
He shuffled along until he got to the office and switched on the light, breathing a big sigh of relief as he did so. But the clock here was the ordinary kind with only twelve numbers on it. Bobby grunted in disappointment and began to search. Maybe it was in one of these drawers?
Something touched his leg and Bobby jolted, only just managing not to shout. The something jumped back in fright and he breathed another sigh of relief when he saw that it was only a cat with a big, fluffy tail.
“Hi, kitty,” he crooned, crouching down and holding his hand out to it.
The animal looked at him warily for a moment, then came closer so he could scratch behind its ears. It closed its yellow eyes in pleasure.
“Where did you come from?” Bobby asked it. “I don’t know anyone around here who has a black cat.” His eyes widened. “Uh oh. A black cat. And it’s nearly twenty-four o’clock!”
Even as he kept scratching the long, silky fur, Bobby wracked his brain trying to remember what it was they said about black cats and midnight – because from what Mart told him, black cats and twenty-four o’clock must be worse.
But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember a single thing about what black cats were supposed to do at midnight. Did they come and break all your mirrors? Did they spill salt everywhere? Maybe, if it was twenty-four o’clock, they’d bite you on the neck and you’d turn into… a were-cat? A cat-pire? Bobby shook his head. That didn’t make sense.
“You’re not going to bite me, are you?” he asked the cat, who was now purring contentedly.
He pulled out the alarm clock, and the cat head-butted it almost out of his hands.
“Hey! Don’t do that.”
The cat ignored him and rubbed against the clock again, but Bobby had a better grip this time.
“It’s 11:27 now,” he told the cat. “But if I had a twenty-four hour clock, it would be… twenty-three twenty-seven.” He frowned. “Where am I going to find a twenty-four clock? I don’t think there’s one here.”
He shoved the drawers closed and tried the tack-room, just in case, but there really wasn’t anywhere the clock might be hiding. For a moment, he considered just leaving the lights on, but he didn’t want to get Regan in trouble for wasting electricity, so he screwed up his courage again and flicked them off. It was really, really dark and the cat kept trying to trip him up, but he made it to the door in the end.
“Where am I going to go next?” he asked the cat, as it rubbed against his legs again. “Hey! Where are you going?”
The black cat slunk away into the shadows. Bobby was just about to let it go and keep on with his search when an idea occurred to him: Maybe the black cat knew where there was a twenty-four hour clock. Maybe it was leading him there!
He hurriedly set off to follow it, catching sight of it a little way away. The moon hid behind a cloud and the cat seemed to vanish, but he had seen which way it was going and headed that way. Soon, he was under the trees again and the moon didn’t help. Even the flashlight wasn’t very much help.
The cat trotted along a path through the woods, stopping every now and again to let Bobby catch up. Now he was certain that it was leading him to the clock. What other reason would there be for a cat to do that?
Only, then, the cat just stopped and looked at Bobby. And they must be right in the middle of the woods. He looked at Trixie’s alarm clock again. 11:41. Not much time now and where was the clock? He felt like he’d been walking in the woods for hours, but he knew that he hadn’t, really. He bent down again and tried to scratch the cat behind the ears, like it had wanted before, but this time it kind of edged away.
He felt in his pockets for something to offer it, maybe a piece of string, but all he found was his sandwich. Suddenly feeling hungry, he pulled it out and took a bite. It had gotten rather squashed and some of the crabapple jelly had oozed out one side. He offered it to the cat.
“Want some?”
Reddy always took up that kind of offer, but cats are not the same as dogs. The black cat sniffed it delicately then began to meander away. Bobby followed along, eating as he walked. Once the sandwich was gone, he started on the apple.
The night seemed to be getting darker and darker, Bobby thought, as the cat led him under some very thick-growing trees. The moon had disappeared completely and the little light from the flashlight cast only a small circle around him. He turned it around and looked at it, eyes widening.
“Oh, no,” he moaned. “It needs new batteries.”
For a long moment, he stood still, torn between keeping going with his quest and with hurrying back home before the light went out altogether. The cat rubbed against his legs again.
“Okay. I’m coming,” he told it. “But we’d better be close, cause I can’t see in the dark.”
He trudged on through the woods, stumbling every now and again over something he couldn’t quite see. The light grew fainter and fainter. He wasn’t even sure that the cat was still with him. Its black fur blended with the darkness, making it invisible.
Then, just as his flashlight winked out, Bobby caught sight of some kind of light up ahead. He almost ran to get there, but when he pushed through the bushes, it was only the moon shining down into a clearing.
Only, it wasn’t just a clearing. The clearing had a cottage in it. A witch’s cottage. He was outside a witch’s cottage, most probably with the witch’s cat, at almost twenty-four o’clock. And, while this wasn’t what he had in mind when he set out, surely a witch would have the right kind of clock, wouldn’t she?
He crept closer. The cat kept rubbing against him like it was trying to make him lose his balance. He tip-toed up onto the front porch and peered in through the front window.
Bobby frowned. Inside, it looked kind of ordinary. And he couldn’t see any clocks. It must be so close to midnight now, but he couldn’t read Trixie’s alarm clock in the dark. He decided to try around the back.
He peeked into each window along the way, but there were no clocks in sight. Maybe twenty-four o’clock had happened already and he’d missed it. How could he find out, when it was so dark?
He reached the back of the house and tried to look in a window, but bumped his head on something. He felt it with his hand. A little door opened and he felt a candle inside. A candle! And he had a box of matches in his pocket.
It took him two tries, but Bobby lit the candle and closed the little door on the lantern. Now he could see the time.
“Phew!” he told the cat. “I haven’t missed it. There’s still six minutes left.”
He tried to take the lantern off its bracket, only to find it was fastened to the wall. Then he tried looking in the window. There was a clock there; he could see its outline. It didn’t look like a regular, twelve-number clock, but he needed to get the candle nearer. He tried swinging the lantern as far as he could, but it still wasn’t near enough. And Moms had always said never to hold onto a lit candle because that was dangerous.
“How do you like that?” he muttered. “It’s right there and I can’t see it.”
A moment later, he remembered that Mart’s army knife was in his pocket, and that it had a little screwdriver attachment. He took it out and undid the two screws, setting them down on a little table nearby, where he’d also put Trixie’s clock. He put the knife next to them, ready to put them back in again when he was finished – it must surely be bad luck to steal from a witch.
Trixie’s clock said it was less than a minute to midnight.
Bobby gulped. He edged up to the window and looked through, holding the lantern high. He still couldn’t see clearly, but he was sure that number at the top must be twenty-four. It definitely wasn’t twelve. And the hands were both pointing up, so it must be time.
Inside the house, a clattering, ringing, echoing din began, almost drowned out by an unearthly shriek.
Bobby yelled in fright. Lantern gripped tight in his had, he ran back the way he had come, stumbling and tripping, falling to his knees and getting back up again. The candle went out, but he kept his grip on the handle of the lantern, which miraculously did not break.
Whether by good luck or by good navigation, he came out of the woods almost at the same place he went in. Bobby quickened his pace once out in the open, the moonlight giving him more than enough light to see. A few minutes later, he was home. But he’d closed the door behind himself and he didn’t have a key. He’d forgotten that you needed one to get back inside when you went out the front door.
Maybe he could sit down on the porch swing and think for a minute. Something would come to him, for sure. He wandered around to the back porch and climbed on. He lay his head down and closed his eyes – but just for a minute.
Moments later, Bobby was asleep.
“Bobby! Whatever are you doing here?” he heard his mother demand, what seemed like an instant later. “And where did you get this lantern?”
He opened his eyes. The sun was up and his mother was fully dressed. He sat up quickly, eyes wide.
“Oh, no! I must have gone to sleep. Quick; we’ve got to get that back to the witch’s house, before she knows it’s gone.”
“What witch?”
He waved vaguely in the direction he thought he might have come from. “Over there, somewhere. She’s got a black cat and a twenty-four hour clock and everything.”
“Moms! My clock is gone! Am I going to be late?” Trixie cried, from somewhere inside.
His mother straightened and turned to face his sister, who appeared in the doorway. “No, you’re up right on time. But what do you mean, your clock is gone?”
Bobby gulped. Now he was in trouble. “Uh, I might have left it at the witch’s house.” His eyes widened as he remembered. “And Mart’s army knife, too. Oh, yeah. And my flashlight.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. Moms had that look on her face, like when he was little and he used her best strainer to catch frogs, and he didn’t want to look at her when she looked like that.
“What witch’s house?” Trixie asked. “Bobby, you should know by now there’s not really any such thing as witches.”
“Well, this one really was. Her cat led me there, so I could see her twenty-four hour clock.”
Moms was going to say something, but Trixie beat her to it. And that was just fine, as far as Bobby was concerned, because Moms still looked mad, but Trixie didn’t.
“What sort of cat?
“A black one, of course,” he answered. “He had yellow eyes and a nice tail and he kept rubbing on my legs.”
“And you followed this cat where?”
Again, he waved vaguely. “I first saw him up at the stables, then he took me to the witch’s house.”
“Through the woods?”
Bobby nodded.
Trixie grinned. “Henry the Eighth.”
“The eighth what?” asked Bobby, frowning.
“That’s the cat’s name. Henry the Eighth. He lives at Sleepyside Hollow.”
“Wait! You mean, the witch has eight cats and they’re all called Henry? Doesn’t she get confused?”
Both Trixie and Moms laughed at that. Bobby wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or annoyed, because at least Moms was laughing and not so mad any more, but it annoyed him to be laughed at like he was a baby, who knew nothing.
“No, Bobby. Henry the Eighth was a famous king from long ago,” Moms explained. “This cat is named after him. But you’ve got to stop saying he belongs to a witch. His owner is a very nice lady.” She turned to Trixie. “I’ll call Mrs. Crandall a little later and see about getting your clock back. Maybe you or Mart could go there after school and take back her lantern.”
Trixie nodded and went inside to get ready for school.
Moms sat down next to Bobby. She had that serious look now, like she was going to tell him something important and wasn’t sure he was old enough to know. Bobby straightened himself up. He was old enough. He was sure of it.
“Bobby, I’m very disappointed that you left the house while you were supposed to be in bed. Something could have happened to you and we would never have known about it. I want you to promise me that you won’t do it again.”
He considered that for a moment. Could he keep that promise? Then he thought of how it had felt to stand outside the witch’s house – wait, no, the nice lady with the cat’s house – and hear that dreadful clock striking twenty-four. His heart started beating faster again. No, definitely, that wasn’t a great idea and he really shouldn’t do it again.
“I promise, Moms.”
“Thank you, Bobby. I will have to talk to your father about your punishment.” Then she smiled. “But come in now and have some breakfast.”
They went inside together. Mart was already at the breakfast table, eating up all the food. Brian was there, too, but at least he didn’t eat everything in sight. Bobby sat down at his own seat and helped himself to what was left.
“I found a twenty-four hour clock,” Bobby told his middle brother, before shovelling in his first mouthful of scrambled eggs.
Mart’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. “You found what?”
“One of those twenty-four hour clocks you told me about. I thought it was a witch’s house, but Moms and Trixie say no, she’s not a witch, but a nice lady. But she had the clock all right, and a black cat, and I heard the clock strike. At least, I heard it start to strike. I kind of left before it finished. Hey, maybe it’s a witch’s cat, but it got sent to the nice lady by mistake. Do you think that can happen, Mart?”
“You found a clock with twenty-four numbers around it?”
“That’s what I said.” Bobby tried to roll his eyes like Trixie often did, but couldn’t quite make them do that. “But I asked you a question about the cat.”
“Witches having black cats is just a superstition, Bobby,” Brian explained. “They’re not a witch’s cat, they’re just a cat. But I think the thing Mart is trying to say is that clocks don’t come with twenty-four numbers around them.”
“But…” Bobby turned an accusing look on Mart. “You tricked me!”
“I didn’t mean to,” Mart answered. “And you don’t know that there aren’t any clocks with twenty-four numbers around them.”
“Brian says there aren’t,” Bobby argued, knowing that settled everything. “But then, how do they tell twenty-four hour time, Brian?”
“They use digital clocks,” his eldest brother answered. “And it never says 24:00. It goes from 23:59 to 0:00 – or, at least, every one that I’ve ever seen does.”
“Then there is no twenty-four o’clock?” Bobby scowled at Mart. “You told me it was like midnight, only worse! And it was.”
“I did warn you,” Mart answered, weakly. “It’s not my fault you didn’t listen.”
“I’ll be speaking to you about this later, Mart,” Moms told him.
Mart scraped the rest of the food off his plate and put it in his mouth. “Gotta go get ready for school,” he mumbled, pushing his chair back and hurrying away.
Brian looked over at Bobby and smiled. “So, you had a bit of an adventure last night?”
Bobby nodded. “But it wasn’t a very good idea. And I shouldn’t have done it. Especially since Mart was only trying to trick me.”
His eldest brother laid down his knife and fork. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Mart knows lots of things, but he doesn’t know everything. Maybe there was some truth in what he said.”
Brian got up. He ruffled Bobby’s hair as he passed, but Bobby didn’t mind too much. Besides, he was busy thinking.
Maybe Mart had been at least a little bit right. After all, he did say that if you’re awake at twenty-four o’clock, you’re in trouble. And Bobby had been awake at twenty-four o’clock and he was in trouble. But that was because he’d gone out of the house by himself at night, so maybe it didn’t count.
He shook his head. Whether Mart was right or not about twenty-four o’clock, Bobby had learned one thing: when someone said that something was trouble, you shouldn’t go looking for it. Deep down, Bobby knew that he’d never go looking for a twenty-four hour clock again.
The End
Author’s notes: A big thank you to Mary N./Dianafan for quickly editing all three pieces I sent to her at once. Thank you so much, Mary, for your help and encouragement! Both are very much appreciated. Another big thank you to Mary C., who wrote the beginning of this story. And finally, a big thank you to the CWE team, for setting the challenge. (In case you missed it, we were challenged to submit unfinished stories and then to finish someone else’s.) I just wish I had more time because I’d like to finish all of the stories.
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